


Toska

by LtTanyaBoone



Category: NCIS
Genre: AU, Child Abuse, F/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 13:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If McGee knew about this, he would write the story down and get it published and make money from it. And if she ever reads of Officer Lisa's painful teenage love at a Boarding School, she will castrate him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toska

_Disclaimers:_ NCIS, the rights to the show and its characters do not belong to me. No money was made by this. A/N: English is not my native language. So please forgive me my grammar and spelling mistakes.  
 _Spoilers_ : none really  
 _Pairing_ : Ziva/other, Tiva  
 _ **WARNING! Mention of the spanking of a teenager.**_

* * *

 **Toska:** _Russian_ –"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom." –  Vladmir Nabokov

* * *

If McGee knew about this, he would write the story down and get it published and make money from it. As it is, he does not suspect, and never will find out. And if she ever reads of Officer Lisa's painful teenage love at a French Boarding School, she will castrate him.

·:|:·

It begins when she is fifteen and acts out yet again. Another night spent at a club, bought passage in with a faked ID courtesy of her best friend's brother. Only this time, Aviva has the really bright -read unbelieveablystupid- idea to get wasted. She finds someone that sells her Lordknowswhat. She offers her some, and if she had been fighting with her mother yet again, she would have taken some, too. But as it stands, her fight was with her little sister, and those do not tend to piss her off as much. So she declines. Spares herself a trip to the ER, really. But kills her best friend, too. Because the stuff was cooked up wrong, and two seconds after sniffing it, Aviva's eyes roll back in her head, and she hits the tiled and filthy floor of the restroom, her body seized by cramps.

·:|:·

Sometimes, she wonders if Aviva and Tony were made on the same day, but Aviva was born later because God wasn't sure if a female variant of the playboy-goof-off personality could make it. _He_ should have listened to _His_ doubts, really. It would have spared them all from so much.

·:|:·

She sits in the hospital, staring at her hands. Her mother rushes through the door and takes her face into her hands and kisses her cheeks and forehead and swears she will ground her until she is eighteen and joining the Army. And then she is pushed to the side and her father's hand connects with her cheek, and it stings and oh, it feels so good. She simply stares at him, blinks, surprised. And whispers one word.

_Again. Againagainagainagain. Hit me again, you bastard. HIT ME! I SAID HIT ME, ASSHOLE!_

She screams, and her mother holds her and cradles her head against her chest as she lashes out and kicks and scream until she breaks down. She isn't the first one to end up a sobbing heap on the Emergency Room floor, nor is she the last. But she is the only one in her family that has ever had such little dignity to react to death like this.

·:|:·

When Gibbs loses his memory, and she goes to him and breaks down _-again-_ , she wants him to slap her like her father did that day. Because physical pain she knows how to deal with. It's the emotional one that will be her undoing.

·:|:·

Her bag is packed in less than three hours. Strange, really, how a life can come down to one piece of heavy luggage. Her father sends her to a boarding school. Her mother says it's to protect her. From whom, she does not ask, because she knows her mother thinks she needs to be protected from herself mostly. But she knows, knows that her father is not sharing the worry of his wife. She humiliated him, by her behavior in the hospital. And by acting out like she did.

·:|:·

Geneva is beautiful. And her French is good enough to get her into the school, along with her father's bank account. She is not the only Jewish girl there, but she never talks to the Rabbi, or goes to service really. It's four weeks to her sixteenth birthday, and she is _Atheist_. There _cannot_ be a _God_ that allowed for this to happen. If only she knew what was coming her way, she would not curse _His_ name and spit on _His_ Saints.

·:|:·

The first thing she does when she moves to D.C. is finding a synagogue no one employed at the Israeli Embassy goes to. She defied _Him_ once, and will never do so again. Because the price she had to pay for her teenage blasphemy was one too high to pay again.

·:|:·

She gets a letter from her father, ordering her to write her mother and sister. She ignores it. Because paper would be all-too-willing to soak up the ink she would write all the insults in. Words, screamed and hissed and spat have a tendency to be forgotten over time, but written ink is a permanent marker destroying families and friendships.

·:|:·

Ari writes her. Tells her of his medical studies, and that he will come visit her. She answers with a postcard. One word. No.

·:|:·

In her Art class there is a boy that no one likes. He can paint and draw like Tali. He laughs like Aviva did. Everyone is surprised when in the middle of class, she suddenly gets up and shoves her tongue down his throat. Everyone, except for her.

·:|:·

Dorm rooms are made for three girls. She shares with Natasha from Russia, and Carolyn from Scottland. Natasha is beautiful and Carolyn plain, she is bright and Natasha stupid. _God's_ balance holding up again. But Ziva is _Atheist_ and does not believe in that any more. She believes that Natasha will die before she turns fourty judging by the amount of vodka the girl consumes. And Carolyn, well, she will either live a very happy life, or kill herself. Maybe both. Because the people with the best lives are always the ones that are unhappy. What a great thing that Ziva's life is so screwed up that she has to think how one spells happy.

·:|:·

Karl's kisses taste like spearmint toothpaste. They leave her mouth on fire, burning and aching. Every boy and man she kisses after him is compared to that, and not a single one can match up. Cruel, really, but so is life.

·:|:·

She lies to Abby and McGee because she is good at it and does not know what else so say. She wasn't fifteen and it wasn't in a weapon's carrier.

·:|:·

Christmas break means the school closes down. She stands, her bag packed neatly, at the foot of the stairs to her dormitory and waits for her father to show up. Actually, she doesn't wait for him, she waits for _the driver_. While the busy parents of the other kids have made time to pick them up themselves, she knows that her father will not have made that time. Because he is Eli David and she is just Ziva. And then Karl shows up, his hands in his pockets, his foot kicking at the marble stair, soft voice telling her he wishes her a Merry Christmas, and she cannot resist and kisses him again. And he kisses back, this time, and there is no one else there besides them. And his arms wrap around her waist and her hands tangle in his toolongforaboy perfectforanartist reddish hair, and she wonders briefly if this is _Heaven._ But she is _Atheist_ now, and has destroyed her chance of getting into _Heaven_. If only she had known that back then.

·:|:·

Abby's question to what's her type is innocent enough, and she bites her tongue quickly. Because she doesn't have a type she dates. She only has a type she does not date, a type she avoids at all cost. The one with blue eyes, red hair and kisses that taste like spearmint toothpaste.

·:|:·

Tali talks and talks and talksandwon'tshutup. She takes two hours of it and then explodes. She runs up the stairs after yelling at her little sister to lock herself into her room only to find it has been turned into a painting room for her princess of a little annoying monster. She stands and stares at the walls painted in soft orange and the easels and drawings that are drying in the afternoon heat. Her mother comes up behind her and inhales, tells her she is sorry but-

She turns around slowly, looks into her mother's eyes and delivers the final blow.

_I don't care._

And with that, she goes down the stairs and into her father's study. She can hear annoying precious Talia cry in the living room, hurt by her insults. Her father gets up and closes the door behind her, and she lets her pants fall to the floor before he can order her to bend over.

Her voice is steady as she counts aloud. When they reach twentyfive, her father hesitates. Her ass feels like it's on fire, but like she said, she doesn't care. It's the last time he spanks her. Because there is no point when she does not care how much it's hurting, really.

She cannot sit for the rest of the holidays.

·:|:·

Maybe there was one that matches up with Karl when it comes to kissing. He doesn't taste of spearmint toothpaste, though. But his kisses have such a burning intensity that they rival those of her first, maybe only love. But that is something she will never tell DiNozzo.

·:|:·

When she is back at the school, she gets a new room with only one roommate. Ludmilla is from Serbia and one of the popular girls. She is at her friends' rooms more often than she is in the one they are sharing, and Ziva is glad she can breathe again. It takes another three days until she is able to inhale again, because Karl was snowed in in Nepal and comes back once school has already started.

·:|:·

Tali writes her. Childish postcards and letters she can barely read, if she wanted to, that is. She takes them and puts them in her drawer, unopened. Ludmilla furrows her brows, but Ziva simply stares at her, and it does not take a minute to make the girl grab one of her school books and announce she is going to go to Study Time.

·:|:·

Karl's roomate Rafael is gay. He is not obvious about it, so the whole school knows. Except for the teachers. And Rafael's parents. Karl and Ziva sit on Karl's bed and make out while Rafael reads with his headphones on. He tells them he isn't bothered by it, and knowing he does not get off of it, the couple doesn't care he's in the room. Because that way, they can say they were just studying should a teacher or a member of the student council come knocking.

·:|:·

She meets Rafael again, years later. He is the witness on a case involving an Italian restaurant owner. Rafael was his partner. DiNozzo wonders why she doesn't ask what kind of partner, and she just glares at him before telling him she noticed the ring of his hand that matched that of the victim. She doesn't tell him she has seen the sadness in Rafael's eyes and felt her own sadness welling up again.

They meet after the case is over and get drunk out of their minds. He talks of Vincenzo, and she of Karl, and in the end, they have sex and cry while doing it.

·:|:·

In truth, she is sixteen. It happens in Karl's room, and it's painful and messy and not at all good. It's the worst sex she ever had, will ever have. And it's the by far the most amazing time someone made love to her.

Rafael has some real studying to do. Because he actually cares if he fails Maths, again. Karl already knows that studying won't help him, and Ziva is beyond the point of caring about her grades. They kiss and she sits in his lap like always, just this time she has one leg on either side of his. His hands sneak under her shirt and her body moves on instinct. She wants to pull away when his hands slip higher, searching for the clasp of her bra, but her hips press into his, and she feels his erection, and even though she's suddenly afraid and nervous she moans into his mouth. It takes five minutes for Karl to realize she is not wearing a bra at all, and when he brushes her school uniform shirt over her shoulders, she knows it's going to happen.

They fumble with a condom, but cannot get the packing to open, and then throw it into some hidden corner of the room, because what difference is it going to make, anyway?

He is hard and uncertain, and she whimpers when he presses against her entrance. He kisses her, softly, then harder, more demanding, and she opens her mouth to tell him no but only screams out in pain because she's too late and he has already shoved himself into her. He moves once, twice, a third time and then shudders, and she feels something spill inside of her, and cries silently into his shoulder.

·:|:·

When she comes to DiNozzo's apartment after Jenny has died and lets him devour her, she is getting shots, and trusts him that he's clean. But when he spills into her, she suddenly goes rigid and throws him off of her, making a dash for his bathroom. It is only by sheer luck that he is a male and keeps the lid of his toilet seat open. If he didn't, she would have to clean the bathroom.

·:|:·

Karl sits next to her in Sex Ed and makes comments under his breath. She giggles softly and tells him to shutuporelse. He raises an eyebrow in silent challenge for her to name something that she will do to him so he will stop his running commentary. She leans closer when the teacherturnedredlobster turns around to write on the board and whispers seducingly into his ear.

_Shut up, or you will never need what we are being told while with me._

For the rest of the lesson, Karl sits with his hands pressed to his mouth.

·:|:·

When it's over, he holds her and kisses her tears away gently. It is the first time he tells her he loves her, and she stares at him, unsure if she should believe it. In the end, she does, and it hurts even more because it is the beginning of the end of them.

·:|:·

A new school year comes, and Karl is painting more and doing more sketches while she kindofbutnotreally composes songs when he is working.

·:|:·

As she hands Gibbs the sketch of the map that was stolen from McGee and her, she cannot understand the amazement coming from the younger agent. It is as she said, in Mossad, agents get canned because they fail to pay attention to details. And really, Karl would have done a much better job at a reproduction.

·:|:·

He almost gets thrown out of the school. It's not like he took a picture of her when she was naked, or worse, filmed them when they were doing Itwithcapitali. No. He just decides that for the art project titled "Paradise", drawing a naked girl would be a brilliant idea. And it's her and Rafael and Karl that know he was really painting her because of that scar that was on the thigh and the freckle just below the right breast.

He grins at her, and she slaps him across the face for his audacity to show everyone what she looked like naked and then pulls him into a searching kiss because he is such an ass and she Loves him.

·:|:·

She Loved Ari, and she Loved Tali and perhaps she Loved her mother. Out of all the men in her life, the ones she is not related to, she Loves Gibbs and McGee and maybe, she is In Love with Tony. But she was In Love with Karl, and she Loved him at the same time. And it was the biggest pain ever to experience that losing these things together could break someone.

·:|:·

Tali does not talk any more. She shrugs and hmphs and sighs and nahs and maybes. She looks at her shortly and then brushes past her. The painting room is bare again, the walls painted white, the hardwood floor replaced by soft beige carpet. Her mother says that the bed will arrive the next day, if she wants, she can get her father to get the mattress from the attic so she can sleep in-

_No. I don't want it._

And she turns and walks back into the guest room, closing the door softly behind her.

·:|:·

The bathroom joins with the room of her sister. She is lying in bed, tracing the outlines of Karl's face on a worn and tattered photograph when she hears retching from the bathroom. Slowly, she pats over and then yanks open the door.

Tali is kneeling in front of the toilet.

_Fuck off._

And for the first time since she had to go, Ziva takes a step towards her sister instead of running for the woods.

·:|:·

At the school, she tears open all the envelopes and reads all the letters, biting down her thumb nail as she does. Karl sits behind her and reads over her shoulder when he is not gently kissing her temple or running his hand through her long curls.

Their mother is dying. And Tali is turning into an anorexic cutting teenager.

And she is Geneva making Love to her boyfriend until she cannot form a coherent thought anymore and blissfully falls asleep to black nothingness.

·:|:·

She takes one look at the boy to know that whatever the mother says about a happy family is bullshittimedtwenty.

In Interrogation she pulls up the sleeve of his left arm and then holds him when he breaks down.

She wishes she could have been there for her sister like this.

·:|:·

Her father is mad at her, fuming actually. This time, he comes to Geneva, with a silentandbarelythere Tali in tow.

She is dragged by her arm, and digs her heels into the ground when he tells her to get into the goddamn car.

It is Karl that makes her go to her mother's funeral. Because she sees him step from the dorm and walk down the stairs, intent on helping his girlfriend.

She doesn't say a word for the whole journey to their house in Haifa.

·:|:·

It doesn't come as a surprise when she is sharing a room with Talia after the funeral. Because her father never could deal with either one of them on his own, really, and getting rid of her proved to be successful. She is not getting on his nerves any more, and she is also still alive. Success by his standards.

Karl sneaks into their room at night, and she tells Tali to keepitshutorelse. Karl snickers upon hearing that comment, but the glare he sees her give her little sister shuts him up quickly.

·:|:·

Jacob isn't a saint. She breaks his nose and it feels so good doing it.

At night, she slips into Tali's bed and holds the little girl when she sobs and screams out in anguish.

She didn't tell her to wait with doing Itwithcapitali and feels like it's her responsibility that the boy she chose is an asshole to do Itwithcapitali with.

·:|:·

When she offers Abby to break the jerk's nose after her latest breakup, she means it.

·:|:·

It's Tali's wide brown eyes that stare at her when she realizes that the waste bin in the bathroom is only used by her any more.

She sits on her bed and stares and her mouth closes and opens again and _**OHHOLYSHIT**_ **.** Ziva shrugs and comments that she's always had irregular periods but takes the damn test anyway to calm her sister down.

 _Ohholyshit_ is the only thing she can say when the really unholy pink plus sign registers in her head.

·:|:·

Karl paces his bedroom and she sits on Rafael's bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking back and forth slightly. She has no tears left to cry in her, is exhausted, drained.

He kneels down in front of her and kisses her forehead before leaning his against it, drawing a shuddering breath.

_We need to call your father._

_No._

Instead, she calls her brother and cries into the telephone and begs him to _helpmepleaseAri_.

·:|:·

Science has advanced, and the next time it's not a pink plus sign that turns her world upside down, but the word 'pregnant' on another one of these pesky sticks.

Karl is long gone, and there is no Ari to call, either.

So she calls the family clinic, knowing that this time, she will have to make the decision herself.

·:|:·

Ari takes her to an OB/Gyn and threatens Karl to castrate him if this wasn't a false positive.

When the screen of the ultrasound machine flickers to life and Ari slowly turns around, Karl sprints from the room. He runs all the way from downtown Geneva back to the dorm and locks the door behind him.

She lies on a exam table and cries as her brother strokes her curls.

·:|:·

She lies in Karl's arms, on his bed, crying softly. His arms are wrapped around her waist, and he is kissing the back of her neck gently.

He Loves her, and they are In Love. He asks her to marry him, and she says yes.

And then she doesn't have to.

·:|:·

Once upon a time, she believed in happy endings. In true love, in soul mates, in Love That Conquers All. It didn't end with the first bomb in Tel Aviv, her childish naivite. It doesn't end with her mother's death, it didn't end with her being send away to a boarding school. Loosing friends still does not break her belief in that dream.

But what happens with Karl and their baby is enough to let her become an emotionless robot able to survive Mossad and being paid for killing people.

·:|:·

Gibbs asks her if she ever wants to have kids, and she tells him that it's not an easy question.

She wanted children, someday. Then she was send to Geneva.

She definitely wanted to have Karl's baby. Even when she called her brother and begged him to help her, it was merely a call for protection from their father. Because she could never have killed this child.

When she leaves the school, there is no child, and there will never be one between her and Karl.

Once back in Israel, she pushes having children from her ToDo-List and moves it to the NeverWill-List.

Finding out that she is pregnant again makes all the memories come back. And she cannot do this, is too unstable for this to happen. Not now, not ever.

She wanted to have kids, past tense. She does not want to, present tense.

_Is that an answer simple enough?_

·:|:·

Talia is sleeping in her bed, soft breaths coming from her sleeping figure. She opens her eyes and blinks and wonders what woke her. Karl is in his room, and Rafael promised to keep him there. She wanted the night to herself, to think about things.

Tali turns in her sleep and gives a soft whimper. She concludes that this must have woken her, because Tali is usually not a restless sleeper, and her almost tossing from side to side is unusual.

She takes a breath and closes her eyes again when they fly open a second later and she gasps in pain. Sitting up, she throws the covers back. A dark patch is growing between her legs, and pain is shooting through her abdomen.

And then she screams.

·:|:·

The school calls her father. He is fuming and she actually waits for the steam to come from his ears when he rushes into the hospital room. She is half-sitting in her bed, staring at her hands on the blanket over her bare legs.

The doctors have given her something for the pain. But it didn't help that much, only took the edge off. Besides, she deserves the pain, and that which will still be coming her way.

It was only a partial miscarriage. Which means she will have to undergo surgery. Which their father needs to give his consent to and sign forms for. She lets him vent and yell and scream at her. She does not say a single thing, even bites her lip once, drawing blood. A nurse tells him to shut up or leave. Says she needs to rest, that what she is going through is bad enough, she does not needs his insults and accusations to top it off.

She knows he asks Tali if she knows who the father is, who the father _was_. To her surprise, her sister shakes her head and says she doesn't know. It's the only time Tali ever lied. And she does it for her sister.

·:|:·

She considers calling the father of her second child. Even dials his number, actually. But then she realizes that it will accomplish nothing. She has already made up her mind about terminating this pregnancy, and telling him would just be stabbing him in the eye with the dull end of a spoon. Unpleasant, painful, pointless.

When he picks up the phone, she instead tells him she cannot come into work the next day, needs to go to the dentist. Chipped her molar while eating an apple.

He offers to drive her, and she assures him that it won't be necessary. Her neighbor will driver her and pick her up, and check on her if the doctor needs to use anesthetics. She will be back the day after.

Silence carries over the line, and she can hear the wheels in his head turning. She closes her eyes and prays silently, prays to a _G-d_ she did not believe in so many years ago that he won't catch up on the lie.

He tells her to take it easy, take a few days. And then he says it's okay, her decision, but in case she ever wants to talk, he will be there. Because it is also his child.

And then he hangs up and she is left with the dial tone and a raging headache.

·:|:·

It would have been a boy. She asks the doctors when her father is not there. Her voice is soft and broken, and she cannot stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks.

They can't say why it happened. Physically, there was nothing wrong with her or the baby, nothing they can find. Which is good, she will be able to have more children, later, when she is older and really wants them.

She knows what happened. Children are gifts from _God_ , a _God_ she does not believe in, a _God_ she has defied with her actions. And now she has to pay the price for that. Just like every other teenager, she has to learn that her actions have consequences.

·:|:·

Her father wants her out of the school as soon as possible. But Tali asks him to let her stay, begs him not to leave her alone in Geneva. And she is still young and has those puppy eyes, and even their father cannot refuse her innocent and teary look.

So she is allowed to stay until the end of the school year. He goes back to Israel, but warns her that this will not happen again. She simply stares at him, unblinking.

Back at the school, the others are talking about her. She does not see Karl the entire day. And she did not really want to, either.

It's way past bedtime and midnight has already ticked past when the door to her and Tali's room opens and closes silently. Tali gets up from her bed and lies down in her own as Karl crawls under the covers and holds her while she cries and sobs into his chest. It takes a while for her to realize that her hair is damp and his tears are soaking it.

·:|:·

In the end, she can't do it. She sits in her car, staring at the entrance of the building for two hours. Her appointment comes and passes, and still she sits, unmoving, unseeing.

She makes a new appointment. Makes it into the waiting room. Hears her name being called. And she gets up and leaves, just like that.

On her way back home she stops at a drug store. On a whim, she buys a pacifier. It's green and a yellow duck is printed on the end. She toys with it and puts it into the pocket of her jeans. Then she drives to DiNozzo, and stands for almost an hour in front of his door before knocking.

He lets her in, his eyes guarded. She walks past him and stands in front of the couch, her eyes downcast. Her hands are useless at her sides and she pushes them into her pants pockets, and her left one closes around the tiny object she just put in there. She hesitates, then pulls it out, looking at it, toying around with it. He steps closer, so close she can feel his breath on her face. And when she looks up, a tear is rolling down her cheek.

_I couldn't._

Her voice is soft and his arms close around her as she buries her face in his chest. And he whispers soft nothings into her ear that tell her it will be okay, it will work out for them. And she doesn't know if she should believe him, but she knows that she never wanted to as badly.

·:|:·

They fight. More than they used to, which was once a week. Now it's once an hour. She is pushing him away, and Karl calls her on it, and she does not know what to do.

Her entire being hurts. Breathing hurts. Her chest hurts where her heart is thundering inside her ribcage.

The end of the school year is nearing, and she does not even begin studying for the tests and exams. She stops talking in class, shakes her head when a teacher asks her a question. Most of them have looks of pity in their eyes when they look at her, and they do not try to get answers to their simple questions when she is trying to find answers to questions that are much too big for someone her age.

·:|:·

She fights with Tony. Just about everything. At work they fight about cases, interrogations, her workload. At home they fight about her not wanting to stay the night, him crowding her, his hovering, all the mistakes he makes. She tries to push him away, and he gives her room to breathe by letting her slamm the room to her bedroom closed and not picking the lock. Every morning when she leaves her bedroom, he is in the kitchen, making her tea and setting the table. And every morning she breaks down and cries and he tries to comfort her. Because she wants this, she wants this so much, wants them to be a family, wants their child to be happy with them as parents, she wants it so much it _**HURTS**_. And he lets her believe it's possible for them.

·:|:·

Her bag is packed. Tali helped her, sweet, silent Tali that stays by her side, that paused in the middle of folding a shirt and walked over to her to hug her and lets her cry when the pain becomes too much.

She does not say goodbye to Karl. She does not see him again, does not want to see him again. In her dreams, she is haunted by a small boy with his eyes and hair and Tali's smile, and she cannot face Karl when he is sharing so many of his features with the child of her dreams.

Back in Israel, she stays in her room for weeks. She rarely leaves her bed, the maid brings her something to eat, and after she has lost almost half of her weight, she also stays for as long as it takes for Ziva to eat whatever she cooked. She does not get the idea that perhaps, she could just empty her stomach later. Because that would require planning and energy and she does not have enough to keep her eyes open for more than two hours.

·:|:·

Karl writes her once the school starts again, and she is still in Israel, and only Tali goes back. He gives Tali the letters and she mails them, dutifully, like the good girl she is. Ziva sits and stares at the envelopes. Two months after the first one arrived, she finally finds enough energy to open it. She reads it and then falls asleep with tears running down her cheeks.

She reads one letter every day, for two months. Then she is done. And new ones have stopped coming.

In the last letter, Karl tells her he is so sorry for what happened. That he still loves her, will never be able to let her go. He wanted their baby, wanted it just as much as she did. And he wants her, wants her back so badly. But he knows it won't happen. And it breaks his heart.

·:|:·

It's just a simple comment, and they are fighting like never before. More like, she is yelling and screaming and raging like never before, and he is standing and staring and does not know what to say. She packs his bag and throws it out the door and tells him to _fuck off_ and pushes him from her apartment. And then she cries herself to sleep.

·:|:·

When she grabs her backpack the next morning and opens the door, he is sitting on his bag, his back against the wall. She stops dead in her tracks and her hand rests on her stomach, searching for the small flutters of life from her child that often comfort and reassure her. The baby moves slightly, and she takes a deep breath and wants to tell him that he should go home and take a shower before even thinking about going to work like this. And he just tells her he is not going anywhere. Because even if she does not want him anymore, he still loves her, and he loves the little person growing under her heart, and he won't lose that. And she cannot remember why she was mad at him in the first place.

·:|:·

Two days after she read he last of his letters, five days after it was send to her, Tali comes home unexpectedly. The school closed down for a week.

When she asks why, Tali looks at her with so much pity and regret in her eyes and shakes her head. Their father is less concerned, oblivious to what was going on between her and Karl. He simply tells her a student committed suicide. And her heart stops beating, and she asks him for the name when in her heart, she already knows the answer, and he gives Karl's. And her world comes crashing down around her.

·:|:·

She goes back to school a week after. She sits in classes, takes notes, studies for tests, for her final exams. Then she gets into the IDF and after that, she joins Mossad. She looks for a fast way to get herself killed, but her father will not let her on suicide missions and she is not lucky enough to have one of her operations go south. Ari is assigned her partner, and he slowly builds her up again.

She has sex and even moves in with someone after six months of a relationship. But when they mail his head by overnight express, she does not feel as much loss as she did with the baby, as she did with Karl, and she hopes she will never be able to feel that kind of pain again.

And then she goes to America and falls In Love with DiNozzo.

·:|:·

The labor is hard and long, and she is crying for almost the entire 18 hours. When their girl is finally born and placed on her chest, she sobs and has no tears left in her body. She is beautiful and perfect, all of her ten tiny fingers and toes and the little nose and the chocolate brown eyes she hopes will turn green with time, and her head of sandy tiny curls.

And Tony is there, holds her hand and kisses her temple before gently stroking their daughters head. He runs after the nurse when she takes the girl away, and comes back with her safely tucked in his arms almost an hour later, and he is smiling wider than ever before. And she can see the love in his eyes and feel it in her own heart.

And when Avigail yawns and puckers her tiny lips before giving a small sigh and falling back asleep, she suddenly knows that there is a Happily Ever After, and that _G-d_ has granted her a chance to her own. And she promises _HaShem_ she will use that second chance.

_fin._


End file.
